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Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Dark Nights: Metal #1 Review and *SPOILERS*

It's Coming.......

Written By: Scott Snyder

Art By: Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion, FCO Plascencia, Steve Wands

Cover Price: $4.99

Release Date: August 16, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Alright, we've been forged and cast so now it's time to get into some Metal and see what all the hubbub that Batman's been investigating is all about......... which will be amazing because there was just too much thrown out at us in those preludes that need some answering. As we saw from those previous two issues, Batman's been trying to find a way to determine what exactly he saw when he was uploading the Batman persona back into his body after he was brought back to life by the dionysium, but after collecting all the magical metals that he could find and using the Wizard Shazam's Ninth Metal dagger to power his machine, all he saw was darkness........ which, even though we saw the Cult of the Bat actually blocked any vision he could have got........ maybe darkness is all there is. Let's jump into this issue and see what the Cult of the Bat is up to now that Batman broke the seal and Barbatos is about to be set free. Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with a cold open on Warworld, where our heroes are forced to fight their way out of Mongul's death games, which seem to be created by Hiro Okamura, the Toy Master, who for some reason is referred to as Toy Man in this, even though that goes against our current continuity. Speaking of current continuity, shit is thrown out in this issue all kinds of willy nilly, like Flash referring to Aquaman's harpoon hand, which he's never had since the New 52 reboot......... but all of this is to just get this gang of original New 52 Justice Leaguers together for the rest of this story, even though it's never spelled out where Jessica Cruz or Simon Baz are........... another thing that's never spelled out is what happened to Hiro because after the Justice League defeat Mongul, Hiro is just absent while our heroes make their way back to Earth.

Once our team get back to Earth, they find that the planet isn't exactly how they left it.......... Well, mostly just Gotham, which has now sprouted itself Challenger's Mountain right dead in the center of it and once our heroes explore this strange occurrence, they discover that there's a secret base inside, where they find not only the five members of the Challengers of the Unknown, but also Red Tornado. Yeah, they're in cryo-pods and Tornado seems to be shutdown, but this is a pretty cool ass find. It gets cooler when the Blackhawks arrive and we find out that Lady Blackhawk is actually Kendra Saunders, the former Hawkgirl, who wants our heroes to accompany her back to Blackhawks Island, where she plans of giving us the lowdown about what the hell is actually going on here.

In the end, we discover that Kendra has made it her mission to eradicate all of the Nth Metal on the planet, since Carter disappeared to go looking for its source in what he calls the Dark Multiverse, which is explained as being in the background of our own Multiverse and their only real interaction with it was the Challengers disappearing into it and Carter and Kendra hearing their screams from the other side. If that wasn't enough, we also have the prophecy of Barbatos being released from this darkness by a Wayne...... So yeah, Batman's going to cause Barbatos' release in the form of his worst nightmares and what does Batman do? Well, he steals Kendra's sliver of pure Nth Metal and hightails it out of there. As our issue closes, we discover that Carter Hall's journal was hidden within Wayne Manor this whole time, proving the Dark Multiverse's existence and if that wasn't enough, the Dark Knight is met by the Daniel Hall version of Dream, who has some things he'd like to discuss with our hero.

That's it for this first issue of Dark Nights: Metal and while I'm all about the big picture of this series and what it will bring, I have to say that a lot of this story just seems to be thrown together all willy nilly with no real thought put into it because characters and character backstories that shouldn't exist in this continuity are used for nothing more than "wow" moments. Hiro being called Toy Man, Aquaman's harpoon hand, Final Crisis...... which has always been something hinted at, but doesn't make much sense in this continuity, the Will Payton version of Starman appearing here, Hal Jordan's ring working around the Nth Metal, which seemed to be a problem in The Casting and the Daniel Hall version of Dream showing up. Now if DC came out and said that all of the old continuity was back before this story began then more of this would make sense, but since they haven't this comes off as a problem for me because there are no rules and nothing, including this iteration of the Justice League being together make this puzzle look like all of the pieces were in the box before the creators began this endeavor. Still, I think the bigger picture, while not showing all of its pieces is something that seems cool and I look forward to seeing where it goes coming down the line. As for the art....... well, I love Greg Capullo's art, but I don't know if he's just been off of these characters too long or if he was rushed because while some of the book looks great, there are sections of this that it's hard to figure out what the hell is exactly going on. All in all, there are problems I have with this issue, but there was enough going on with it that I can look past some of that with the hope that they'll be explained in future issues, allowing me to keep an optimistic mind going forward with this series.

Bits and Pieces:

While I do have some problems with some of the characters and shout outs that appear in this comic....... not to mention the cold open that takes up way too much page time in this issue, I do think that there's enough meat to what's going on here to keep the reader interested and looking forward to what's coming with this series. The art is half decent and we're one step closer to checking out the Dark Multiverse.

9 comments:

That cold open felt really weird to me. Like it was solely there just to have a fun cool idea as a way to open the book, but it goes on for too long and then just suddenly shifts to afterward but takes a couple panels to understand that it's after. Really weird. Liked it overall though.

This was good issue in my opinion, there was action,the story moved forward, and character reveals that made me happy(RedTornado, Hawkgirl, Dream, and while not my favorite Version of Starman, it's A Starman none the les) I have the entire James Robinson run and it's my favorite DC story. 7/10

I've never been much of a fan of these big event comics, and this hasn't changed my mind. I like the idea of dionesium, but sometimes it feels like Snyder wants to play god of the DCU. Not that that's a bad thing. The JL Voltron robot made my mouth smile but also my eyes roll. Capullo is a great artist, but this felt rushed. In one panel Aquaman has no mouth. While I don't get worked up over continuity, this book seems like it just can't decide which continuity it wants to exists in. Finally, the reveal of "wagon" meaning Wayne was so cheesy I wanted to light it on fire and yell OPA! Boosh! Anyway it would just be a 5 for me, but hold the Fuck You.

I hate comics like this. The writer needs to invent all new histories, new characters, alternate names, alternate universes?! I can't keep track of all this nonsense - and I don't want to. This is a convoluted mess. KISS - keep it simple stupid. And the art was not great from Capullo - either he was rushed, or hated the script as much as I did. FWIW - I loved Court of Owls.

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